For me, WBC week is the best week of the year. This year was no exception. My son is a little too young to attend yet, so I missed him a ton, but I did get a chance to do a lot of what I hope to do every year. I met up with old friends, made some new friends, and played a lot of games.

On Friday while my dad and I were eating lunch, he said to me - "Your mother wouldn't understand it here". I told him, this week feels like the Griswold Family reunion. We're all pretty strange characters, but it's great to see everyone after a year away. This is a brief look at my WBC.

For the longest time my dad told me he had a thought for a board game. I never really asked him about it too much until WBC of 2010 when a friend of mine had me play a game he invented. I told him I wanted to have my dad's baseball game ready for next WBC and my dad and I did it.

It took a long time to really come up with how we wanted it to work. We worked through many hours and versions of our rules (and we're still ironing out the awful use of the English language) but we had a lot of success playtesting it with the WBC crowd.

My dad came up with the idea of making T-shirts, and for all the strange ideas he's had - this was a good one. I became known as the "Lords of Baseball" guy from BGG.

Between my father and I, I think we were able to play it with around 50 people and talk about it with maybe 100. That's not too shabby for 2 people over 5 days.

We had lots of great feedback about it and we are crossing our fingers about publishing.

A couple weeks before the convention, Don Greenwood emailed me and asked if I'd GM a tournament. I had played DoS before and agreed. I ran my first demo of DoS on Monday and was a little nervous with some of the questions. I hadn't had a chance to play with 4 players before WBC, so with as many questions as there were I had the rules open a lot. It didn't help that there were a few mistakes in the rulebook, but we got through it.

The event drew about as well as I thought it would. Monday was a busy day and attendance went to other events during the week. All told I had 27 players (with my playing spoiler in one heat) and my semi-final/Final event went as well as it could have. I had 8 show up, so I had two four player semis taking the top two from each.

UP is a favorite of mine and Monday is a good day for an event like this. Bruce runs 3 games in a row and gives points for placing first, second, third, etc. Bruce is also an Ohio State football fan and for the past few years we've joked back and forth (I'm a Michigan football fan). That morning my dad and I went to eat breakfast at the diner down the road. The diner had those quarter machines out front and one sold little temporary tattoos. I bought one, hoping to joke with Bruce about his team's little tattoo scandal. I asked him if I could trade a tattoo for some extra UP points. Had I gotten the extra points I may have made the final table. I had a first place and two third places. Either way I had a lot of fun.

Tuesday's auction was run in the Lampeter room. During this time I spent most of my efforts playing Lords of Baseball in open gaming. During this time I also realized that I needed a better box for my prototype copy.

I went down to the auction store and picked this up (in shrink for $2) for the box. I emptied out the inside and found a really cool component. This thing:

Every year this is my filler game. This year Chris had it set up where you were allowed to choose any team from history from 1901 to the present. I drew the last pick in the draft (which does NOT mean I won it all last year) but I did get the team I wanted to try. I drafted the 2009 New York Yankees.

I wasn't able to play a ton of games though. Most of my filler time was taken up by the other baseball game on my list.

I was able to play in 3 of the 4 MM heats again. I decided to pick teams I could try to have fun with and it so happened that I took the GA tech team from 1990 in the first two heats. This team features a AA scorer and 2 A scorers, albeit with a C defense.

In my two games with GA Tech, I scored very well and defended very poorly as I thought I would. I lost both games with them, but they were close.

In my third game, I took a scrappy 1995 North Carolina team into the tournament against a player named Jeff (sorry the last name escapes me). It came down to the final die roll of the second half. With no timeouts on either side, I rolled a 1 and got a foul. I scored 3 points and the game was tied. A few seconds later I realized I had the zone defense out! I said, I am going to take the foul off right now and will probably get one more point. After checking ... NO! The point total was the same for both ratings!! I had never played OT before, so we had to check to be sure we played it correctly. One OT was not enough though. Jeff and I went into Double OT where he eeked out a 126-125 win. I told the GM Terry that in my 3 games I averaged over 100 points which had to be a 3-game first (it sure was for me).

I played against 3 fun players - meaning they were fun to play against and I had a great time. I didn't get to play some of my usual opponents, but going 0-3 does that.

I learned this at WBC 2010 and played a few times on Yucata. Certainly not as experienced as the players I sat down with. I got to play with the GM and a gamer named Alex - who I knew from some online tournaments I ran and from seeing his name on the BPA website. I finished a distant second, but it was great finally meeting Alex in person and playing a game with some fun people.

Next year this event will likely be in the Ballroom as it out-drew the room it was in.

One of the biggest reasons I love WBC is the Air Baron tournament. I was able to play in two of the heats and finished with a strong enough second place to earn a trip to the semis for the fourth time in four WBCs.

I went out west in both games and in game two I had enough money to win if I win 4 die rolls. I needed to take over San Fran to help move into Denver. Henry rolled 11's 3 times to stop me though.

I got to play a heat with the game designer and former GM, and I met some new people who played in the first heat. I don't know how the numbers looked this year. I think AB was down a little, but it will likely be back again next year. So will I.

I know the VS GM from playing online and my GM schedule only allowed me to play in one heat of VS. That was a disappointment as this is a very fun game and since it's really good with 4, I rarely get to play it. The heat I played in was at the same time as the 7 Wonders Heat - in the same room. We had to scramble to get enough tables to play, but we did.

I was seated with 4 other players, so we had a 5 player game. I only recognized one other player - Andrew - from the BPA website. This game was not pretty from the start. I think the winning score for Andrew was something like 39. I was in the hunt late, but I think I was behind by 3 or 4 points.

The thing I'll remember about this one, was during a renovation Andrew started to sing a version of the Three Dog Night song Celebrate (using renovate instead). - It's still in my head too Andrew!!

I wanted to learn this game and tried to get my dad to read the rules and teach me, but when we tried to get through a game, it was 1:00 AM and he was spent. I ran into some guys I met in the Days of Steam tournament and they had the game ready to play. I got into a game with them and found out that it was a pretty interesting little game. Nothing mind blowing about the mechanics, but the strategy was there and I had a good time with it. On the wishlist now.

I had played this once at a Gamers Club day, but never really "got it". I ran into my friend Chris in Open gaming late night and saw he was ready to start something with his wife Anna Maria and friend Brian. I had nowhere to be, so getting to play with them was a good idea. We decided on this one. I told them I had about a half play under my belt as I did play it once but didn't really know what I was doing. Brian and Anna didn't know anything about it either, so we learned together.

It's a decent enough game. There's a lot going on, masked by the thinking that there isn't a lot going on ... if that makes sense.

I had a lot of experience with this one, but didn't want to play in the tournament for a few reasons. 1 - I wanted to play Vegas Showdown. 2 - while the game lasts about 30 minutes, I assumed (correctly) that getting signed in, seated, and started would take a lot longer. There were a lot of players in this event (not surprisingly) and Kathy had her work cut out for her as GM. I'm sure she did a great job though.

During open gaming I was able to play this a few times. My dad owns a copy and I remember playing with him once, so I only needed a small refresher on the rules. This is a fun game that plays quickly and is not overly complicated.

Recalling WBC 2010, I remember seeing Egizia on Yucata and when I saw it at WBC I knew I wanted to learn. Black Friday has appeared on Yucata and I played through a "learning game" there but had NO clue what I was doing. Greg Crowe and I had some free time before tournaments so we sat down at Cafe Jay looking to kill an hour. Skip said this game was a little on the lengthy end, but agreed to at least teach it. I think I picked up enough where I can play another learning game on Yucata, but this time kinda sorta know what I'm trying to do.

This was another Cafe Jay demo, but I had already had the chance to learn this with the Central PA gamers. I played a couple open games with some friends. I think it's a solid game, but doubtful I'll buy as the only people I'll likely play with already own it.

After playing Automobile with Chris, Anna Maria, and Brian - they asked if I knew Tichu. I knew from Chris' open gaming list that Tichu is a favorite of his, so I told them I'd play if they could teach me. I partnered with Chris, so my goal became "don't play like an idiot". I remember two hands where I made "#$%$ why did I do THAT" moves, but overall I think I played decent enough for a rookie.

I saw this in the demo area and was intrigued by the artwork. I read through the description and was very interested by the theme. My family enjoys Broadway shows, and I thought a game based on that would be great. I saw Evan and Marla getting ready to try to learn, so I sat down with them. A few turns in, Evan made a not so startling revelation about the game. He said something to the effect that "I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say none of us are going to buy this". It did fall flat with us, maybe because there were three, but I think mainly because the card order on the stage didn't really jive with what we were trying to do - and none of us could top the "traveling show" numbers when we put on our shows.

I heard similar comments from other people who tried. Sad, because the box art and board art make the game look interesting.

On the whole, I think I averaged about 4 hours sleep each night, which is great since I was up playing games. I went to a wedding the Saturday of WBC, so I drove home after my last Lords of Baseball Demo on Friday night/Saturday morning. Now that it's Monday I think I'm back on a normal schedule and I'm rested again.